Stuff you can work with today (reality) and looking at what’s happening right now for you to benefit from tomorrow (hyper reality).

Got some comments in last week and it seems the more practical stuff about e-mail marketing was very high appreciated. So… allow me to start of with those snippets again this week.

The current reality is that we have to deal with current challenges. So… let’s talk e-mail, analytics & more marketing tactics first before we get into the mumbo jumbo of strategy and dreamy stuff aka hyper reality.

E-mail marketing snippets

It’s very hard to keep a tight schedule if it comes to e-mail marketing. Let alone choosing the right ESP and more… These slides with NO BULLSHIT talk (44 pages - PDF) can help you kickstart your e-mail or get it to another step. Some really good and real talk in there from in-house marketers! And… you can volunteer to add your talk (read: get your name out in the ecosphere opportunity alert!).

Does Noah Kagan ring any bells? Probably not. He was #30 at FB, #4 at Mint. Well, I just love the way he does marketing. Give it 5 minutes and you’ll probably be in for it for the rest of the video (only 17 min).

I’m still intrigued about what people say vs what people do. I can’t talk for the Chinese, but I think it’s a universal thing. People say they’re poor, but spend a shit load of money on buying stuff. It’s insane. The middleclass is growing, everywhere. Proof is here, right?

But… Singles day is rooted into China’s culture, which makes a difference than the cheaply used Black friday or cyber monday. Its far more profound. It would be far more cleverer to launch Independence day as a shopping day for, let’s say, local products for instance. And Alibaba is planning to expand in the next few years as they only have reached 10% of retail market opportunity in China alone :-o

I’ve stopped watching Amazon since a few months. To my humble opinion, I think you’d should be watching Alibaba instead.

What you can learn from this video? That you can come up with a good moment to throw a hook! It can be an event, it can be a day you invent yourself, it can be a behavioral reward for people, for example: loyalty day for your shop/brand where you double loyalty points and give reduction on high-demand products.

Tech helps Brand communication & Data capturing

Nike is building a 55.000 Square Feet store full of tech.

Retail and tech are a match made in heaven. Although not a lot of Belgian retailers are jumping on the bandwagon of tech, several product brands are taking a leap into tech. And it will help to build even a more bigger brand and could eventually cut the middleman more out. Not fully, but grap a bigger chunk of the pie when going direct-to-consumer.

The new Nike store in SoHo (NY) will have a next level customer-experience with cool 3D printed models (cutting out that industry + supporting brand communication), Kinect powered courts (hello data capturing), Apple pay (perfect district to do that) and of course instore touchscreens, which are obvious & are getting more common these days.

To me, personally, it’s a very obvious and well-know simple strategy to have as a marketer: build brand in every way you can (thank you tech) + capture data along the way which make you even more smarter (thank you tech). Intelligence is so underestimated!

Some pictures of the store below (via Nike.com). Looks dashing! Can’t wait to visit that store.

What can you learn from this Nike store full of tech?This might seem to far off for most of retailers and it is, although you can start very small about thinking in terms of value and how to captivate some data out of that. That should be a really good start. Technology can help you with that. That’s how you should think about it. Not the other way around. Technology won’t save your business. It can help initiate your brand & customer/consumer-experience though.

Hyper reality -> Stuff we only can dream of

Minion or Million business?

In short: Snapchat launched a €130 sunglasses to help people to express themselves in an easy way, taking out all the obstacles for storytelling.

Doesn't this vending machine look a lot like a minion?

It’s interesting to see they launched a separate website and doing a creative campaign for offline events (vending machine drops) which generates a shit load of buzz online. The typical way creative campaigning works best. Interesting to see that they’re open for biz inqs which will lead to brand co-operations for sure. You can discuss the details but this approach is very clever in all its ways.

What you can learn from this approach of product launch?100% brand & customer-experience control. 100% product margin control. 100% consumer first value/focus. Optional brand co-operation possibilities. Offline generates online buzz if it’s well executed, which means not hyped but limited distribution when demand is high: Scarcity (works only if demand is high). It often comes with the dynamics of coolness, exclusiveness and often higher priced. Nostalgic factors can also be a fun factor to add to the mix.

Oh. And… this :) might this be the next Pokémon like hunting? Find the Snapbot :)

Augmented vs VR?

On another level, the Snapchat augmented filters etc… , it seems that augmented reality will developing a parallel path with VR. Augmented reality might be more B2C focused, VR more B2B focused.

Hyper reality (video)? The retail experience in this video is kinda the current state of Chinese e-commerce actually. We Europeans don’t get this kind of commerce, although it in its essence it is extremely honest, a digital-first information communication (which I’m a big fan of) and a design/colour meets purpose way of making websites.

What can you learn from this video?The future is still far of but allow yourself to innovate in this direction. People get triggered by these kind of movies as well as cinematic movies to find this cool. Coolness is a good initiator of word-of-mouth. Technology can help you achieve this. Maybe you can start small? How a bout a conversational 24/365 UI? In simple terms: Whatsapp & Messenger.

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The internet is the best thing that ever happened to me. Really! It helps me to better understand the world we live in and learn as much as I can, as fast as I can in order to be Creative with Intelligence as wide as the box can get. @Parafixio is my playground.